Hi everyone!
In the next year or so, my project is to rip all my blurays and put them on a 4tb external USB hard drive. I’ve already done it for all my DVDs, but I still have to buy an external bluray player in order to finish the job. My budget for the bluray player is CHF 75.- used, so around 75$. All this is done through MakeMKV.
Then, I’d want to have a small Linux PC that I’d use as a media center. My budget is under CHF 100.-, so around 100$. I’ve noticed that you can get 2014 MacMinis with i5 or i7 for that budget, but I’m open to any other brand.
What I’d want the PC to do: -Play all my movies stored on my external USB drive. I don’t think I have 4k movies, but I can’t exclude that some of my Blurays will be 4k in the future -Display my family pictures and videos stored on kDrive (a cloud by Infomaniak) through Firefox and WebDav -Play my music on my Yamaha Amplifier through Firefox and Tidal -Use the wifi for updates, browser based stuff, etc…
The PC would probably not be used for anything else for now, but it needs to be able to become a desktop PC again in the future if needed.
I’d want to operate the PC with a bluetooth mouse and only have to use a keyboard from time to time.
I’ve heard about Jellyfin, Libelec, Kodi and other stuff but I don’t really know what they are.
Thanks in advance for your advice!
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here’s someone who installed linux on one.. If you need WiFi make sure you understand how to add the Broadcom module into the kernel.
The 2014 minis are all dual core haswell CPUs so don’t bother with the hotter i7 versions. You can’t upgrade the ram so buy what you need.
If you’re in Europe often the hp elitedesk is a used pc of note. The elitedesk 800 g4 specifically may be a better option since the sff ones can already have bd drives built in, can take extensive internal storage upgrades (2x nvme, 2x 3.5, 1x 2.5) and will have a four core eighth generation intel processor 99% of the time which makes 4k within reach.
Kodi is the media system package used by a lot of linux systems. Libreelec is a linux distribution that focuses on running kodi.
If your stereo has hdmi you can just plug one into the other and hear movies and tv sound through the stereo, if not then you’ll will need to do some kind of input switching to listen to music using the 3.5mm jack and movies using sound over hdmi.
I read your article and it was interesting.
I didn’t know the RAM on the 2014 MacMinis wasn’t upgradeable. Thanks for letting me know.
Also what did you mean by don’t bother with the hotter i7 version as I saw a lot of them for quite cheap? Are they bad or just too powerful for what I’d do?
As for the Broadcom module, I’ve done it on my 2012 upgraded MacBook Pro and it was easy in Fedora. Don’t know about other distros though…
The RAM is upgradable on the 2018 mini, though the storage isn’t. The ability to upgrade the RAM is a big part of why those ones have kept their value.
I actually use a 2014 mini as my general purpose home server.
The interesting thing about that model is that they were offered with a Fusion drive: so basically, some have a small SSD for installing the OS on, with a larger spinning HDD for everything else. If you do pick one up and it doesn’t have the adapter for an M.2 drive, you can buy them on eBay for less than £10.
So mine now has a 250GB M.2 SSD and a 1TB SATA SSD. When I installed Debian, I put /root on the M.2 and /home on the SATA, which works perfectly. The OS can have as much space as it needs without eating into the space my stuff needs. And I have an external 1Tb HDD connected too.
But yeah, as mentioned elsewhere, the wifi can be a pain on those Macs. Personally, I didn’t bother with it as it’s hooked up with Gigabit ethernet anyway.
Thanks for your answer! I only realized now that since it’s gonna be near my router, an Ethernet cable can do the job in case RPM Fusion and installling the Broadcom drivers isn’t enough.
For what you’re suggesting using it for there isn’t much point in paying for the faster hotter chip.
It’s unlikely you’ll be able to decode 4k if you end up going that route with the 2014.
In my country, used i7 or i5 are around the same price, but I can’t find an i5 with 16gb of ram to future proof it and make it useable for something else than a media center if I want to recycle it in the future.
Still I hope the i7 isn’t consuming too much or producing too much heat.
My media server, which is just my server generally, is an old thinkpad I have from 2014. For media I use Jellyfin and I ensure the content is already in a format that will not require transcoding on any device I care to serve to (typically mp4 1080p hevc + aac).
If you look at the used computer market, there are endless options to attain what you are asking for. My only real advice is make sure the computer doesn’t draw much power and, if possible, doesn’t emit much or any fan noise. A laptop is a decent choice because the battery kind of serves as an uninterruptible power supply. I just cap my charge limit at 80% since I never unplug it.
If you don’t need transcoding, then anything should be able to handle it. But, if you are planning to stream over the Internet to your phone on LTE, you’ll “probably” want transcoding, or if you are streaming to set top boxes, they may not support the codecs you used, and will also require transcoding.
I personally am using Jellyfin, and find it to be great for TV shows, movies, and you tube (via tubearchivist + its jellyfin plugin). It’s dead simple to setup, its metadata is perfect, and there are great frontends for it. Other than the big update from about 6 months ago, it has mostly been a set it and forget it.
Some people use jellyfin for music, but I find navidrome a much better option for music.
I run my media server on a fitlet2. It isn’t super powerful, but has been a great little machine. It can transcode 1080p just fine, but would struggle for doing anything higher than that.
It hosts about 30 other things too, including my camera and NVR with frigate.
I’d look at retired business machine, preferably something small like Lenovo or Dell SFF office pc, with 8th gen i3 at minimum. 8th gen is where the integrated gpu shines for this purpose. Install plex or Jellyfin. And if possible, stick to internal drives instead of external; one fewer thing to draw extra power. You could even do a second drive internally for backup.
Hardware
A mac mini is probably overkill for what you want to do. We are talking standard blu-ray after all, meaning your videos are going to be limited to 720p. Most hardware will have no problem dealing with that. The cheapest solution that’s fit for purpose is a refurbished thin client. They aren’t powerful or anything, but you don’t need powerful. You need quiet (passively cooled) and low on energy consumption.
Thin clients can be had on eBay for less than 30 Franks.
Software
- Kodi: originally known as the XBox Media Center (XBMC), a TV friendly menu to pick the movie or TV show you want to watch
- LibreElec: A Linux distro, that preconfigures and auto starts Kodi, not the best choice if you plan to use anything besides Kodi
- Jellyfin: A media server. If you got multiple TVs you might want to look into this one. It essentially let’s you operate your own Netflix, complete with a web frontend and apps for phones and TVs, integrates with Kodi
One thing you might consider is skipping buying the Blu-ray player and obtaining your movie rips alternatively. Only you know your appetite for risk, but so long as you’re only getting copies of the movies you own, I’d guess the risk is small. Besides, simply ripping your physical discs isn’t strictly legal everywhere, so that itself may have a small risk.
Put the money you save into a better machine.
edit: jfc, typos. I hate typing on phone keyboards.
Secondary to that is that getting bluray to work on a computer is a pain. It’s not impossible, but its not natively supported on macos or Linux (I dont know about windows, haven’t used it in ages now).
Whereas if you do use the alternative methods, you don’t have to fight with trying to get the os you’re using to work with bluray
Thirdly, the rips you’ll get from the alternative methods will likely be a better quality and/or smaller file size than a personal rip.
Libelec (kodi) is fine if only playing local media but its use for anything else except realdebrid is extremely lacking. On the plus side it will run great on an Rpi5 and if you go that route you can probably even use your TV remote because Libelec has excellent CEC support.
Jellyfin/Plex is something your TV also probably has an app for, so you wouldn’t even need a media center, just a media server.
Plasma Bigscreen is making slow gains, but in a couple of years will probably be the definitive Linux media center PC.
Also a bit unconventional, but Bazzite can load directly into Steam’s big picture mode. From there you could set shortcuts for Jellyfin or Plex HTPC.
I wouldn’t use an old MacMini for much because they aren’t actually power efficient, but any n100 for Ryzen5 minipic with Kodi on it would work just fine for you want. There are plenty of altern6to Kodi, but it’s so simple, it’s hard to pass up.
